AgRyan04 said:

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RangerRick9211 said:

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Last pic is Eastern Sierra / Alabama Hills?

Well done on your journey. I'll never be a trailer guy, but I can't argue with the outcome. Your kids are better off with the experience.

Zero screens. More outdoors. More time together.

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You were pretty close - that photo was actually in Jumbo Rocks campground in Joshua Tree NP.

And I can't promise there weren't ANY screens.....but they didn't live on them.....they couldn't because most of the time there wasn't any wifi and we weren't in cell service! Same thing goes for me and work - sorry, I'm going to be out of service so I'll see you when I get back

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Hah, we have Starlink so I can work from our van. So, true, screens are still around. But it's hard to find the time when we're adventuring.

I was in Alabama Hills/Whitney in April for a bike race. I guess Eastern Sierra all looks a like!

Enjoy your travels!

Haha....I thought it was just me!

Anybody have recommendation for a good campground in/near San Antonio? Preferably on the west side of town?

Any of the state parks around San Antonio are good. Guadalupe River State Park is our favorite but we've been in spring and fall not in summer. We just did hill country fimfo on the horseshoe for one of their Halloween weekends and it was great for kids but not exactly "camping".

213 Grove said:

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Anybody have recommendation for a good campground in/near San Antonio? Preferably on the west side of town?

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Funny we just did this to visit relatives in San Antonio. Since we weren't going to be exploring the park, just parking and spending the day in SA, we went to Canyon Lake.

Stayed at Potters Creek in a Corps of Engineers Park. Clean, and except for the idiot old hippies having concerts until 10pm, quiet. Easy trip down 281 to see family

Biggest drawback was that they locked the gates at 9pm, and there was so keypad. So get in late, you walk to your RV. Or you can use it as a great excuse to escape the relatives by 8

RangerRick9211 said:

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Mr President Elect said:

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I wouldn't mind one. Although, it kind of spans several categories; automotive, outdoors, travel, etc.. Maybe the outdoor board would be better since it is more active?

I started this thread earlier, but didn't get too much traction, although slightly more niche... and broad

Any Boondockers Here?

I've been staying at more primitive camping spots, using apps like Campendium or https://freecampsites.net to find free or low-cost sites, typically without hookups and have rarely had any light pollution from other campers. Although, I've actually only camped in Colorado and Maine so far.

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Oops, I never saw your thread. We're a fam of 3 + doggo in a 170 Sprinter. We boondock all over the west.

https://ioverlander.com/ is the GOAT for boondock sites. Also, SnoParks can be excellent spots.

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Why are RV folks afraid of the dark? We seem to be the only trailer that isn't draped with lights like a Christmas Tree.

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RV "resorts" / parks = a certain crowd (afraid of the dark as you say). State parks are a blend of that crowd + weekend warrior families.

State/FS/Natty Park campgrounds blend more to the weekend warrior families on vacation.

Boondockers = hipsters with $200k van conversions or hippies living out of their van.

I'd take a look at Harvest Host (https://www.harvesthosts.com/), Canyon. You pay for a network where business agree to let you stay on property in exchange for $ traffic. Super duper popular with vineyards/wineries, e.g., you stay on property for free, but you have to spend $30 in food/wine at their store. Some even have hook-ups.

We keep it every year for Tahoe alone. There' a church that lets us boondock for free. Insane value and proximity to all things Tahoe. We'll use it a few times throughout the year as well, but much prefer being off the grid in the mountains.

Last night in Hood River @ Tucker Campground. We're heading up to Timberline for the big snow storm this weekend and some backcountry turns.

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Thanks, I have started using ioverlander since you posted it and it seems to be the most up-to-date of the sites. Not a fan of having to download areas to use the app while on the go, so have mostly been using the website to explore ahead of time.

Do you have much trouble boondocking near ski resorts? I have the Epic pass, so was going to start scouting out mountains that are the easiest to post up near, but I am not big on the early season, so probably looking at starting that around January.

Mr President Elect said:

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RangerRick9211 said:

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Mr President Elect said:

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I wouldn't mind one. Although, it kind of spans several categories; automotive, outdoors, travel, etc.. Maybe the outdoor board would be better since it is more active?

I started this thread earlier, but didn't get too much traction, although slightly more niche... and broad

Any Boondockers Here?

I've been staying at more primitive camping spots, using apps like Campendium or https://freecampsites.net to find free or low-cost sites, typically without hookups and have rarely had any light pollution from other campers. Although, I've actually only camped in Colorado and Maine so far.

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Oops, I never saw your thread. We're a fam of 3 + doggo in a 170 Sprinter. We boondock all over the west.

https://ioverlander.com/ is the GOAT for boondock sites. Also, SnoParks can be excellent spots.

Quote:

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Why are RV folks afraid of the dark? We seem to be the only trailer that isn't draped with lights like a Christmas Tree.

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RV "resorts" / parks = a certain crowd (afraid of the dark as you say). State parks are a blend of that crowd + weekend warrior families.

State/FS/Natty Park campgrounds blend more to the weekend warrior families on vacation.

Boondockers = hipsters with $200k van conversions or hippies living out of their van.

I'd take a look at Harvest Host (https://www.harvesthosts.com/), Canyon. You pay for a network where business agree to let you stay on property in exchange for $ traffic. Super duper popular with vineyards/wineries, e.g., you stay on property for free, but you have to spend $30 in food/wine at their store. Some even have hook-ups.

We keep it every year for Tahoe alone. There' a church that lets us boondock for free. Insane value and proximity to all things Tahoe. We'll use it a few times throughout the year as well, but much prefer being off the grid in the mountains.

Last night in Hood River @ Tucker Campground. We're heading up to Timberline for the big snow storm this weekend and some backcountry turns.

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Thanks, I have started using ioverlander since you posted it and it seems to be the most up-to-date of the sites. Not a fan of having to download areas to use the app while on the go, so have mostly been using the website to explore ahead of time.

Do you have much trouble boondocking near ski resorts? I have the Epic pass, so was going to start scouting out mountains that are the easiest to post up near, but I am not big on the early season, so probably looking at starting that around January.

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If not in CO or UT, you're great! If in CO or UT, you're eff'd and have some homework to do. But if you're good with a gas station lot, you can manage.

Everything is snowed in for winter, so public lands become no go. Then it's a mixed bag of where you live.

I live in Oregon where all SnoParks are open for overnight with a seasonal Sno-park pass. Luckily, I have dozens nearby Timberline/Meadows and they are great for camping/first row at the resort. Also plenty around Hoodoo and Bachelor. Idaho, Washington and California also have tons of open sno-parks.

Certain resorts do allow RV/overnight:

• Home resort Mt. Hood Meadow's allows it in the Sunrise lot for free (shuttle access to the main lodge; ski back to the lot)
• Bachelor has full RV hook-ups in the lot for $45/night.
• On Epic, Steven's Pass allows you to overnight in one of the lot's for a fee.
• Bogus Basin allows their back lots to have overnight
• Tahoe has SnoParks near Truckee and SouthLake that are plowed and you can camp for with a permit.
• We found a hidden gem of a lot in GTNP for Jackson Hole two years ago

Downtown Ketchum allows overnight in their public parking lot for vans = first chair at Sun Valley. We skied PC and DV last December and could barely park our van in town. Harvest Host becomes more clutch in the resort nice towns where they let you park for foot traffic.

Do you ever make it up to Whistler?

We do.

We camp at Mountain Fun Basecamp. Habit for winter, summer they have good MTB access from camp. It's a 6 hour drive for us. But we usually stop a night at Baker. Boring ass drive for 99% of it!

Who wants to tell me the best 5th wheel hitch?

I have just a cheap set of bed rails and a regular 5th wheel that pivots front and back. Basically this:



The RV has one of these, that I'm supposed to be able to unbolt to make backing up easier, and I never do so



I also find myself wondering when they sue Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA for copyright infringement

In any case, my dislike for the el cheapo hitch is:

Heavy
PITA to remove
Bed rails
only one pivot direction
When the front of the trailer hits negative Gs and bounces up, it sounds like it is coming off.

Wonder if for the last concern I could double up the plastic washer it pivots on?

When we get home at Christmas, I think I will have a B&W turnover ball installed. And I'm on board with changing out the trailer side of the hitch,

Before anyone asks, I have seen the Anderson hitches highly recommended

Look at the Anderson ultimate hitch.

I have a short bed F250 crew so was sold on the superglide. By pullrite. I've had it about a year and pulled it five or six times. So far so good, but definitely not an expert on what else is out there.

And yes, it is also a pain in the ass to take out but mainly just because of weight. Removing the pins and taking it out is pretty easy if you have two or three guys. The rails stay in the bed. I only remove it when I know I'm going to go four or five months without pulling the trailer.

We're on our third, and likely final, in about 7 years. First was a pop up with toddlers.
Then got a big bunkhouse that was like 33'. It was too much for our short/weekend trips.

So we settled on a 23' keystone bunkhouse/Murphy bed.

Used it 5-8 weekends for a few years, but now both kids are in competitive baseball.
If anyone here has any suggestions on how to get more use out it with kids in competitive sports that takes up nearly all of camping season, I'm all ears! It's just isn't possible.

We used it just once this year on Labor Day, in between spring and fall baseball (about a 4 week break)

We won't sell it though; sports may wane, and if so we'll start camping again more!

It only costs us about $2k a year to own it, mostly in storage fees.

If we had the chance to do it again, we likely would have opted for family vacations over club sports. It wasn't a terrible decision to do travel sports, I just think family vacations would have been a better choice.

We did use sports travel as vacation as much as possible, and I am not criticizing your choice, just mine

That being said, and the real point of my post, is that several of the parents on our kids' teams used the RV when they traveled to out of town games and tournaments.

Is that not a good option for you?

I've known some travel ball folks to get a smaller class C motorhome. Long days of sitting around doing nothing waiting for your kid to play their 1 game.

More comfortable than pulling a rig long distances and something you can set up in a parking lot and have all the amenities (larger tanks, onboard generator, etc)

Many a tournament, I would have loved to have a bathroom, a fridge, shade, and a place to sit or lie down

CanyonAg77 said:

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Many a tournament, I would have loved to have a bathroom, a fridge, shade, and a place to sit or lie down

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but would it be worth it if you had to do it by yourself while mom and other child is 30 miles away at his tournaments?

last year we did set up shop at a campground that was nearby a tournament, and mom just drove the other child to and from his games cause it was maybe only 30 miles away. We were able to convene at end of day at the campground. But it was an anomaly. truthfully speaking most of their tournaments are in the city, often no room for trailers, and not necessary really far from home, making pulling out the rv kind of more work than we get from it.

If we had just one child in tournaments, and they were 60+ miles from home, we'd definitely be taking it out.

Right. That's where a trailer doesn't make sense. But a 27' class C that you can park next to the other dads's bro dozers?

Now you're talking.

Obviously this doesn't answer your question of what to do with the rig.

We've got a bunkhouse bumper pull and I dream of getting a 42' fifth wheel with 5 slides lol.

Something where I can actually walk around on the side of my bed and have a seat on a couch in the living room.

We don't do much "outdoorsy" camping right now - mostly because my kids are 6 and 19 months old so creature comforts are nice to have.

My wife wants (also dreaming) a class A since she runs out of patience on days where we drive 500+ miles in the rig. The kids are tough and a big motorhome makes that easier. Obviously a class A is like buying an investment property.

If it's paid off and YOU like it for when the kids are gone, keep it and store it. If you think there's little value down the road once they're grown, get rid of it and try something else.

ChoppinDs40 said:

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Right. That's where a trailer doesn't make sense. But a 27' class C that you can park next to the other dads's bro dozers?

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ehh.. not my jam.
And in my experience, where my kids have tournaments, I wouldn't want to be navigating a 27' vehicle in and out of parking. It's usually tight with my shortbed 150.

10x10 canpoy, stocked ice chest and chairs... much easier.

Where are these tournaments? Fields and athletic facilities built for ants?!

ChoppinDs40 said:

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Where are these tournaments? Fields and athletic facilities built for ants?!

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No, they're in facilities that have standard 18' parking spaces, and unless you're first one there, the lots are typically pretty full throughout the day. Good luck finding 2 spots end to end.

Where else are you parking said 27' tenement on wheels?

Like these

I'd suggest getting there really early to get the best tailgating spot. But yeah, those are exact facilities I'm mentioning.

It can certainly be done. Pull in across 3 or 4 of them on a back row and set up shop. It is camping you know...